Just after radio journalist Michela Canova finds out that her neighbour, Angela, has been murdered, she is asked to prepare a radio series on crimes against women. Researching the programmes, Michela is forced to confront the horror and violence of big city life. Did Angela drive her many admirers to the very limit of sexual frenzy until one of them exploded? And why does Michela see the same pattern of incitement and repulsion repeat itself in her own relationships? Dacia Maraini asks a fundamental question about the human condition: how can individuals escape patterns of domination, that are in place the world over? Her sophisticated answers show why Maraini is one of Europe's outstanding voices.